There have been lots of high-profile series enders over the past five years, from “Sex and the City” to “Everybody Loves Raymond” to “The West Wing.” But none has carried quite the heft of the finale of “The Sopranos,” which airs Sunday at 9 p.m., and that’s because there has never been a show quite like it. “Sopranos” leaves a legacy not just of changing television dramas but also of building HBO from a movie channel into the premiere original programming provider on all of television. In Tony Soprano, “The Sopranos” gave viewers the perfect anti-hero of our time, a killer and a wife-cheater who's yet a sympathetic figure, even when he was complaining about the hassle of attending the wake of a relative he’d murdered. “Sopranos” set viewership records for HBO, attracting 13.4 million viewers at its peak for its fourth-season premiere five years ago. Though viewership has fallen off to a mere 8 million for last week’s penultimate episode, in which a rival family attacked Tony’s crew, sending him and his family into hiding, this Sunday’s episode will likely draw many more. Speculation has been rampant in recent weeks over whether Tony will survive the finale. But the show’s legacy will live on, in everything from “Big Love” to “Rescue Me,” for some time. Entertainment Weekly critic-at-large Ken Tucker, San Francisco Chronicle TV critic Tim Goodman and Orlando Sentinel TV critic Hal Boedeker talk to Media Life about where “Sopranos” fits in TV history.
 
Where would you rank Sopranos in terms of great dramas on television?
 
Tucker: It's one of the greatest dramas in TV history. It's not perfect--it had its slow episodes, its moments of self-importance--but those are very minor quibbles with a show that was so brilliantly written, directed and acted.
 
Goodman: I think you'd have to place it at or very near the top for all time. I mean, you have to take into consideration what HBO can get away with as you compare it to dramas of the past, but the fact is that "The Sopranos" completely redefined what viewers expect in a drama and, at the same time, wholly legitimized HBO original programming and cable television as a go-to option. That said, I think "The Wire"--also on HBO--is a better series, though not nearly as popular.
 
Boedeker: It's among the greatest dramas because it depicted a violent, nasty world with a vividness unusual for television. "The Sopranos" is also among the most influential dramas because it ushered in an era of great cable series, such as "The Riches," "Rescue Me" and "Big Love."

What made it so different and so innovative?
 
Tucker: Its unique mixture of violence, humor and pathos. Having James Gandolfini, no one's idea of a conventional leading man, playing the "hero" in a show that scorned the very concept of the hero. The tone of the show, the way it moved between family life and strife and gangster-genre conventions, was utterly different.

That and the fact that David Chase never gave the viewer a sentimental or fake-inspirational moment, yet made countless inspiring decisions, from the casting to the choice of pop music on the soundtrack.

Goodman: I said this at the start and I think it remains true: "The Sopranos" has never really been about whacking somebody. All the violence and language get the attention, but the show was truly unique in how it employed silence.

Network television doesn't allow for any pauses. But Tony and Carmela can say more by saying nothing for 15 seconds than anyone could write in a whole act. Creator David Chase was allowed to let this drama breathe, and so the pacing was always unique.

I also think viewers really underestimated--and maybe never appreciated--how funny the show was. No series ever used malapropisms as punchlines like this one.

And lastly, I think the show excelled by using a small group of writers and directors so that the show never came out of its own skin.
 
Boedeker: “The Sopranos" showed the violence and despicable behavior with an artfulness rare for television.

Most TV series look away from the wickedness or soften it. Not "The Sopranos." The characters looked and acted with such believability that they could have walked off the streets of New Jersey. That authenticity helps explains why "The Sopranos" connected with viewers.

This wasn't just another TV series. This was TV's answer to "The Godfather," a movie landmark.
 
 
How has it influenced the TV dramas we see now?
 
Tucker: It’s influenced TV the way great originals usually do--by inspiring a lot of cheeseball knock-offs and a few good dramas. Without “The Sopranos,” there probably wouldn't have been a “Six Feet Under” or a “Deadwood.”
 
Goodman: Well, I think drama on television--from broadcast to cable--has been in a real renaissance period for five years. "The Sopranos" certainly made savvy viewers be more demanding of how they spend their time and that helped improve the whole game.

But "The Sopranos" completely changed cable television in that you had to give viewers more original, daring, unique and better-told programming. Now going to a movie is often a let down because of higher standards on the really great TV series.
 
Boedeker: We see more complicated characters and more complex families. The characters can act in cruel, appalling ways and still remain viewer favorites. Tony Soprano made the TV world safe for more repugnant protagonists.
 

What will the show's legacy be?
 
Tucker: It put HBO on the map, pop-culturally, making it a destination point not only for viewers who wanted challenging shows, but for producers and directors and writers who wanted to be on the channel that carried “The Sopranos.”

More specifically, “The Sopranos” will stand with the all-time great gangster sagas, like “The Godfather” and “The Public Enemy.”
 
Goodman: First off, that it made HBO and changed the expectations of the audience and the overall quality of cable. But I think the show, once you see it on the shelf in all those boxed sets, will never cease to be brilliant and a major artistic accomplishment, thanks mostly to the acting of James Gandolfini and Edie Falco, plus the writing.
 
Boedeker: Raising television drama to new heights, just as "Hill Street Blues" did a generation ago.
 

What was its most inspired plot twist?
 
Tucker: Having a big, lumbering lug like Tony Soprano be its central character: the villain we loved, the bad-guy who was in analysis.
 
Goodman: There's been a lot of them, but I think you have to give credit to the premise--a mobster has trouble in BOTH his families, so he seeks therapy--and the initial idea that Tony's mother is willing to kill him, and he's angry enough to kill her, and how that effects the main characters actions throughout the run of the series.
 
Boedeker: The whole idea that Tony sought therapy, which set the show in motion. And that twist has played through the show beautifully, up to last week's episode, with Dr. Melfi dismissing Tony.
 

How do you think it will end?
 
Tucker: It'll end without any tidy resolutions, without any thundering “messages” or a moral lesson for us to ponder in grateful awe, and bless David Chase for that.
 
Goodman: I wish David Chase filmed 30 or so endings and stuck them on DVD bonus disc, because there are a lot of wonderful possibilities. I always thought Tony should die in the end, but now I'm waffling, and for a while there I really hoped that Carmela would stop rationalizing her role and rise up to control the family.

And yet I think the best idea would have been for the series to end without much resolution, as if the camera--our own on this Soprano family--just shut off and our glimpse of their world was really just that. But I think we're way beyond that now.
 
Boedeker: Tony is a goner. The recent episodes are so grim that I have to think he will die. I hope the rest of his immediate family--Carmela, Meadow and A.J.--survives. It all depends on what frame of mind David Chase was in. I don't think Chase will pull his punches.